The Devils hockey team does not plan to pay the first year's rent on the $375 million Prudential Center, and in fact they maintain the Newark Housing Authority owes them nearly $800,000 due to delays in completing the arena.

The authority, which owns the year-old arena, had expected to receive a multimillion-dollar rent payment by Sept. 30, but extended the deadline until two days ago, at the team's request.

The team owners delivered 12 pages of letters and calculations to the authority stating their lease allowed them to deduct nearly $2.2 million, due in part to delays in building the arena and completing construction on the land around it.

Taking that deduction into account, the authority owes the team $791,530, according to a letter from Gordon Lavalette, an executive vice president with the team.